Giant solar panels in space?

Question

why dont we just send giant solar powers in space? i mean it might work you enver know =/

Answer 1

This idea is almost as old as the space age. I have done a little reading about this because I am an amateur astronomer and the thought of bright solar power satellites fouling up (to use the polite term) the night sky makes me get up in arms. What my reading has told me is that

(1) they would foul up the night sky, big-time (the size of these things would be square-kilometers, and they's be in geosynchronous orbit, i.e., always in sunlightlight, unlike NEO satellites, like the ISS, that is only visible near sunset or sunrise)

(2) The whole idea is rediculously expensive and way to technologically complex to make sense, even if you can accept an end to dark skies and microwave beams coming down from space.  

Answer 2

Freeman Dyson thought of this idea as well but he called it a Dyson swarm because his idea of building a dyson sphere would have taken to long and cost to much money, here i'll give you a wiki link for you to read more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_swarm...

Answer 3

That is actually being considered as a feasible method for obtaining clean energy. Solar panels could be spread out in space, and the collected energy would be beamed back to Earth, possibly via microwaves. This is better than solar panels on the ground because the sun never sets in space, and the sun's rays aren't blocked or diluted by clouds and the atmosphere.  

Answer 4

The plans for that are already decades old, and nothing new or fantastic. You have basically just two problems to solve:

- the very high costs

- and how to get the power to the ground, without loosing too much to atmosphere or for scorching the landscape.  

Answer 5

Well, the problems are:  1.  Expense.  To get the panels operating & in space is enormously expensive.  2. maintenance - to keep them pointed correctly means you'd have to 'reboost' them every so often, which means an on-board attitude control system as well as thrusters to boost the craft into higher orbits every so often. 3.  refueling - again, enormously expensive, and you'd have to do so every so often - figure, once or twice a year. 4.  The biggie - how do you get the power down?  The most efficient way is through microwaves - which means you're going to be heating up the atmosphere in a local area where the radiation is being beamed - due to atmospheric effects, the "beam" would need to be cleared of people for 5 or 10 miles in diameter, and with the kinds of energy (probably megawatts of power) being beamed, this would add a terrible amount to global warming, *directly* to our atmosphere.

That's why.  

Answer 6

This has indeed been seriously considered. However here are some of the problems. 1:Panels cannot be placed between earth and sun as you would cause shadow. Panels must go else where. Problem 2: The cost of getting them up there. Problem 3: If it does become possible how do you get the electricity/heat to the earth without huge power losses caused by the distance traveled. Some scientists reckon the way to do it is by broadcasting the harnessed energy as microwaves to receivers on earth which would then heat up and power turbines. Problem 4: You are bringing extra energy into what was a closed system. The Green lobby would go nuts. Best thing for us all is to learn to use less energy in our daily lives. We don't need more power, we need to waste less.

Answer 7

OK, you pay for it.

Answer 8

That isn't a bad idea, but at the moment we don't have the technology to get the energy made in space back down to earth in a usable form.  Once we figure that out, we could consider that option.  The cost of getting the equipment into space may slow the process down a bit however.  We are also close to new breakthroughs in the photo cells that convert light into electricity, so it may also be worth waiting a few years so that we have more efficient solar panels before we start sending them into space.  

Answer 9

good idea...

it was mentioned using the lunar surface as a solar farm with numbers of panels harnessing the sun's energies..

that may be a plan - the hardest bit maybe beaming back the power to earth

Answer 10

You're dreaming!

Answer 11

Photovoltaic cells are not very efficient in terms of the electrical energy they produce per unit incident light.  Any of the forms of transmission that would have to be used to get the electrical energy where it can be useful on Earth are similarly inefficient.

In addition, photovoltaic cells are produced using semiconductor fabrication techniques.  These techniques currently produce a great deal of hazardous waste materials and toxic by-products, and require large amounts of clean water.  When you factor in all the energy required to mitigate the production hazards of photovoltaic cells over a large scale, it ceases to become cost-effective means of producing electricity on a large scale.